Faced with a “restricted” Social Security budget, the new Minister of Health, Stéphanie Rist, assured that the planned allocation made it possible to “protect the hospital” while reducing the deficit, during her first trip, this Sunday, October 19, to a hospital in the Paris region.
“We are at an important budgetary moment and that is why I am here,” declared the Minister of Health, convinced that we should not “hide our eyes to the budget”, during her visit to the Intercommunal Hospital Center of Créteil (Val-de-Marne).
“For health, in 2026, 5 billion more are foreseen in the text that will soon be debated in the Assembly. There are 2.6 billion more […] for the hospital,” he said.
“A risk of not having more Social Security”
Stéphanie Rist, a professional rheumatologist, estimated that with this “we are protecting the hospital”, despite a “limited budget”.
Large hospital federations from all sectors have described the allocation dedicated to healthcare establishments in the social security financing bill (PLFSS) as “historically low”.
The government aims to reduce the deficit to 17.5 billion euros in 2026, after 23 billion in 2025. For the federations, this 2026 project “would sign the worst savings plan for the hospital since the 2010s.”
But, if we do not reduce the deficit, “we run the risk of not having Social Security in the long term,” argued the minister.
“We must progressively recover the trajectory of Social Security if we still want to have establishments open 24 hours a day and that welcome all the people who need them,” he said.
The difficulties of caregivers
“It is not necessarily an increase in the budget that is necessary, but sometimes also more professionals […] and organized access,” he explained.
Questioned by the minister, Marie, an emergency nurse, confided her difficulties related to the lack of equipment, personnel, but also lack of care for psychiatric patients.
“We have a lot of patients who we have to monitor, who we have to restrain, because they are verbally and physically violent, it’s difficult right now,” he said.
Acknowledging that it is “difficult” to work in hospitals, especially with “an aging population” and deteriorating mental health, the minister announced that she was working to publish, before the end of the year, “a ten-year investment forecast.”
“I am not announcing a great investment plan, but I am announcing a perspective, because it is very important to return perspective to our hospitals,” he argued.
Source: BFM TV
